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Janis E. McFarland

Chapel Hill, NC | Distinguished Ag Alumni: 2010

Janis McFarland counts herself fortunate
to work in a dynamic industry on the brink
of even greater technology-based
advances: “It’s never been more exciting,
meaningful, and fun to work in agriculture
than today,” she says.
As head of Regulatory Affairs, McFarland
oversees product registrations and
stewardship of Syngenta’s crop protection
products in the United States, Canada, and
Mexico. Since November 2000, the global
agribusiness has received registration
approvals from the EPA and states for
more than 150 new fungicide, herbicide,
and insecticide products, and for 15 new
crop seed treatments.
McFarland grew up in Maryland, the
fourth of eight children. With degrees from
Virginia Tech and Purdue, she began her
career with Ciba-Geigy, studying the fate of
herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides in
plants, animals, and the environment.
In November 1993, she headed an
EPA-mandated review of the risks and
benefits of atrazine, the most widely used
herbicide in corn production, and related
herbicides. The project resulted in a
state-of-the-art scientific database for an
older product, and the EPA issued a new
registration for atrazine in 2006. The
scientific advances resulting from studies
that McFarland’s teams conducted has
improved the design of safety tests and
methodology used in risk assessments for
many other pesticides.
Ciba-Geigy was part of a merger that
created Novartis in 1997. Novartis was part
of a merger that created Syngenta in 2000.
Throughout what some might view as
corporate upheaval, McFarland embraced
the benefits of change: “At every merger,
we gained great people, different teams’
expertise, and new technology.” Her model
for openly sharing knowledge across
disciplines, she adds, was Purdue.
McFarland is also an editor and author,
and is active in the Weed Science Society of
America. She loves fishing, kayaking, visiting
relatives far and near, and more recently,
learning more about the native plants of
North Carolina. She and her husband of 30
years, Dr. Richard McLaughlin (also a Purdue
alumnus) have two college-age children,
two dogs, and two cats.
“My unique experience at Purdue bridged basic and
applied sciences. Even those of us considered ‘lab geeks’
had opportunities to be out in the field. Purdue
emulated the way we work today across teams
and different agricultural disciplines.”